Even if you don't immediately recognize Amy Allen by name, you've definitely heard her songs.
From Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso" to records sung by Selena Gomez and Harry Styles, Allen is behind a lot of hits. She's also the third person to ever win the Grammy Award for songwriter of the year and the first woman to take home that prize.
In this session, Allen talks about her own, self-titled album. She talks about what it's like releasing music under her own name; about the contrast between writing for others versus yourself; and about how unlikely it is for songs to make it big.
"If I have two or three songs in that year come out that the public knows, that's, like, a massive year for songwriters," she says. "Think about how many songs are not being used. Like, the batting average is not good."
Featured Songs
- Amy Allen, "girl with a problem"
- Tom Petty, "The Waiting"
- Selena Gomez, "Back To You"
- Sabrina Carpenter, "Please Please Please"
- Amy Allen, "reason to forgive"
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.
